Septem
by Lucillia
Summary: Star Wars in a universe where Anakin and Padme had a few more children than were expected. Features a Good A'Sharad Hett and a Closet Rebel Vader. Owen and Beru live.
1. How the Heck Did That Happen?

Anakin Skywalker searched the crowd that had gathered around him to congratulate him for his daring rescue of the Chancellor. The face he most wanted to see was absent. As he half listened to the praise he was receiving he worried why his beloved wife had not come to welcome him home.

As soon as he could, he made his escape and went straight to his wife's apartment. Upon arriving he got the surprise of his life. In the months he had been away, his wife had grown to truly Hutt sized proportions.

"What happened to you? You're so Huge!" Anakin blurted out, wincing at the pained look that crossed his wife's face. He was going to be paying for that comment for a very long time.

"Isn't it wonderful Ani? I'm going to have a baby." Padme sighed before going back to her meal that consisted of take-out from several restaurants across Coruscant.

"A baby?" Anakin said wincing as he watched his wife add some sort of pickled vegetable to one of Dex's famous shakes, which in his mind was pure sacrilege.

"Well, it might be twins since those run in the family." Padme said as she slurped down the concoction. " A few of my more distant cousins on my mother's side have been known to have triplets as well. I didn't ask the medical droid because I wanted to be surprised."

Anakin felt ready to faint. Twins, or possibly even Triplets? Discovering he was going to be a father had been shocking enough that it had taken him a while to process it, but this...Well, at least he had a couple months to get used to the idea.

Doing his best not to look as panicked as he felt, he smiled, waded his way through numerous empty take-out boxes, embraced as much of his wife as he could get his arms around, and told her that she had just made him the happiest man in the universe. This clearly had been the proper response, because he wasn't relegated to the couch that evening for calling his darling wife huge.

&!&!&

In the med-center on Polis Massa, Obi-Wan sat there blinking and staring as the babies just kept coming. After the arrival of the fourth, the only thing he could think was **HOLY SHIT**. The arrivals of the fifth, sixth and seventh children barely registered. Padme stayed alive just long enough to name them. Obi-Wan didn't blame her for dying. If he had that many children at once, he would've died too.

While Yoda agreed that scattering the Skywalker children across the galaxy would be impractical as it would quite easily be possible to lose track of one or more of them, he decided that putting all their eggs in one basket would be unwise. It was decided that Senator Organa would take the three girls, leaving Kenobi to bring all four boys to Anakin's step-father's farm on Tatooine.

When Padme's remains were sent back to Naboo for burial, it was decided that the official story would be that she and her unborn twins - no need to let any conspiracy theorists know that there might be more children to look for - had been killed by an exotic intestinal parasite that had been known to trick medical scanners into giving a false negative during a search for parasites. It had something to do with the unique electro-magnetic field they emitted. Usually these parasites were caught by human doctors who knew something was off despite what the scanner said - mainly due to the fact that their patients tended to become rather massively bloated in a few short months -, but medical droids always failed to spot these odd animals that reached mind-boggling lengths until the autopsy. Padme had relied entirely on a medical droid during her pregnancy, making the story somewhat feasible.

&!&!&

Owen Lars awoke a couple of hours before dawn to a strange screeching and caterwauling sound that he had never heard before. Grabbing his blaster, he made his way to the front door of his home where the noise was coming from. When he opened the door, he found a very frazzled Obi-Wan Kenobi trying to sneak away after leaving four baskets and a note on the doorstep. The contents of said baskets were proving to the galaxy at large that despite their early births, their lungs were just fine.

&!&!&

Queen Breha Antilles Organa looked down into the baskets that her husband had set before her. Because she was unable to carry a child to term, adoption was one of the few options left to her. She had spoken with her husband Bail several times about the possibility of adopting a daughter. She hadn't expected him to adopt three without consulting her though.

She smiled as she looked into the baskets. The three girls looked like baby angels.

Bail's shoulders slumped in relief. Breha wasn't yelling at him, which was a good sign. She'd yelled at him for days after he'd gotten a red open cockpit two seated speeder rather than the more practical looking one that they had gone to look at when they were pricing speeders for use on Coruscant. Adopting a set of "triplets" that were in actuality three of a set of septuplets (he still didn't know how Knight Skywalker and Senator Amidala managed that one) without consulting his wife was a higher magnitude of stupid.

One of the babies started crying, breaking the spell that the sleeping infants had cast over his wife. Two seconds later, the sound of the infant's wails was drowned out by Breha's yelling.

(**^**)

**Edited Sept. 3 2010**


	2. A'Sharad Joins The Family

"Luke, Qui-Gon, Typho, Rex, get your asses back in the house and put some clothes on!" Owen Lars yelled after the four small naked boys who had run past him and out into the dunes beyond the house. The heat of the sand finally caught up to the four three year-olds after they reached the first of the dunes. The boys started whining and hopping in place clearly unable to make their way back to the house.

What Owen saw going on at the edge of his property when he'd turned to see what it was that had flickered at the edges of his peripheral vision when he moved to retrieve his nephews made his heart stop. The bastard who thought he could dump a bunch of children on the Larses doorstep in the middle of the night and run was engaged in a lightsaber duel with a Tusken Raider while several other Sand People stood watching.

Cursing Anakin and his wife for being so fertile, he raced over to the boys and grabbed as many of them as he could. As he carried the three of them he had managed to grab to the house, he prayed that Luke would survive until he got back.

While he went back and grabbed Luke, he saw the lightaber duel end with that thrice damned Kenobi slicing off the Tusken Raider's arm and everyone but the wounded Sand Person and Kenobi leaving as he carried Luke back into the house. After he set Luke down next to his brothers who were being supervised by Beru, he grabbed his blaster and headed back outside. Whatever was going on was most definitely trouble, and if it didn't kill him immediately he would most assuredly defend his family with his life.

After coming upon the body of the Sand Person who had been abandoned by its fellows, he discovered that it was both fully human and alive. The man's missing arm lay clutching a lightsaber a few feet away. The point above the elbow from which the arm had been detached didn't appear to be bleeding. He moved in to take a closer look, and noticed that the wound had somehow been cauterized. If the man didn't die from shock in the next few hours, there was a good chance that he would survive.

"Great. Kenobi's dumped another problem on my doorstep." He muttered as he grabbed the man and started to drag him home, praying that he hadn't made a mistake.

On the one hand, the man was apparently a Sand Person and should be shot. On the other, he recognized the man's face from the time he had appeared with Anakin on the Holonet, and it had been stated that he was a Jedi, therefore he would be the perfect choice for babysitting a bunch of Force sensitive brats once he'd been fixed up. There was also the fact that when the man had appeared alongside Anakin in the Holonet news bulletin, it had been announced that he had saved his life. Because he had saved his step-brother's life, he owed him and when a Lars owed someone they made sure to repay them. A Lars never remained in anyone's debt for long.

&!&!&

Ferus Olin watched from a distance as Leia, Breha - born Padme II (which had been Anakin's first choice of name) - and Sola played in the gardens of the Organa family retreat. He'd sworn to protect the girls after he'd learned of their existence and had spent the last two years doing so. Fortunately for his vow, Bail tolerated his presence. Knowing that he'd paused too long, he got back to work trimming the border hedges.

He didn't envy Master Kenobi. The poor man was stuck on a dangerous desert world in the Outer Rim watching over four boys while staying out of the sight of their caretakers. Kenobi had rather unfortunately made a bad first impression on the family he had left his charges with, and it had all gone downhill between them from there.

As he trimmed the hedges, Ferus wondered what Kenobi had done to make the family threaten to kill him slowly and painfully if they ever caught him on their property again.

(**^**)

**Edited Sept. 3 2010**


	3. Captured Princesses Empty Farm

Above Tatooine the crew and passengers of the Tantive IV had been subdued. Vader paced in front of the three prisoners that had been brought before him. Standing in front of him were the Princesses of Alderaan, and they had been caught red handed this time.

The shortest of the three, Senator Leia Organa, had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and strangely resembled his mother in some way. The next tallest, Sola was practically the spitting image of his late wife Padme with Chestnut Brown hair and warm brown eyes. The tallest - Breha - had curly hair that was nearly black and blue eyes, features that he found familiar but couldn't quite place.

He tried to look at the young women as little as possible as he questioned them. The first two brought up painful memories of his wife and his mother, and he kept being distracted by the thought that the blue eyed one should have been named Sola for some odd reason instead of the one that was Padme's Look-Alike.

Realizing that he wasn't going to get anything more out of them while he was in this state, he ordered for them to be taken away.

&!&!&

A'Sharad Hett watched as four rambunctious teenage boys played Flimsi, Rock, Saber to determine which one of them would go out and get the crazy R2 unit that had belonged to their father. He had no idea as to exactly how the droid had ended up on Tatooine, but the day before it had come to the farm in a Jawa Sandcrawler alongside a droid that according to Owen may or may not have been taken from the farm by Anakin Skywalker more than twenty years earlier. According to Rex who had drawn the short straw and was forced to clean the droids, R2-D2 was claiming to belong to Kenobi for some unfathomable reason.

Sixteen years earlier he had come to the Lars farm after he had been exiled from his people whom he had returned to three years before when he had believed himself to be the only survivor of Order 66, the only survivor of a dead order. After the Clone Wars had ended and the Empire took control, he had made his way back to the world on which he had been born and returned to the people amongst whom he had been raised. He soon led the Tusken Raiders in a fight against the farmers who would kill them all if given half a chance. He had called his people to follow him and reclaim the territory that had once been theirs, and they had listened. This crusade had lasted just over two years.

It had been just outside the Lars family farm that he had been stopped by Obi-Wan Kenobi who had engaged him in a lightsaber duel during which his face covering had been removed - breaking the taboo his people had against revealing one's skin - and his right arm was cut off, making him completely useless as a warrior as he could no longer wield a gaderffi. After his defeat, he was abandoned by his people before whom he had been shamed.

It was then that Kenobi had made him swear to leave Tatooine and never return before he too left. As he was no longer welcome amongst his people, he had been quite willing to leave his home despite feeling bitter and angry about it. He had been quite willing to leave, that was until he had met the boys. He had only been half conscious and in the early stages of shock when Owen Lars had dragged him back to his farm. He fell into a healing trance the instant he was safely inside and stayed that way for a good eighteen hours. The next morning, he was greeted by four small, curious, faces. He soon learned that the four boys that had greeted him upon his return to consciousness belonged to Anakin Skywalker.

The fact that Kenobi had tried to get him to leave several times had been what cemented his decision to stay, mainly out of a desire to get back at the man for the pain and misery he had caused him. And stay he did, watching over Skywalker's sons as he helped Owen and Beru raise them for the next sixteen years.

The game finally drew to a close and Luke - who was at least ten centimeters shorter than his father had been - was to go out after the droid. The boy was the runt of the lot and had clearly inherited his height from his mother (unbeknown to any of them, Luke was almost exactly the same height as his maternal grandfather Ruwee Naberrie). After the boy took the landspeeder and left, another quick game sent the other blond - Typho (who unlike Luke had brown eyes) - out to repair the moisture vaporators. The identical twins - a genetic test had proven that all of the boys had the same parents, their Y chromosomes had matched the Y chromosomes in the lock of Anakin Skywalker's hair that Shmi Skywalker Lars had kept since he was a baby and Owen had used as a reference sample, and that Qui-Gon and Rex [a pair of rambunctious brunets with bright blue eyes] had come from the same egg - went to finish up the rest of the chores.

An hour later, the boys - excluding Luke - had finished their tasks. The morning chores were done, and the vaporators were fixed in record time. When they asked, he joined the three of them on their trip to Anchorhead.

Because the chores were finished faster than usual, Owen and Beru had been able to head out to Eyvend and Ariela's wedding earlier than they planned. When the Imperials arrived they found a vacant farm. A thorough search of the farm revealed that the droids they sought were absent. Frustrated, the stormtroopers set the place on fire before heading out to find its wayward occupants.


	4. Lightsabers and Departure

Luke looked down at the lightsaber that the crazy drunk Kenobi had handed him. The old man had shown up while he'd been explaining to the Sand People that had tried to ambush him that he just come out there to collect his droid and go home. Any trespassing in their territory on his part had been unintentional. Normally such an action would have been completely futile, but the Tusken Raiders still respected Uncle A'Sharad despite the fact that he'd been exiled. That respect had slightly rubbed off on his family, and the Sand People generally didn't bother them or try to kill them on sight when they wandered too far away from the property. They didn't let them go for free either.

He'd been about to hand the leader the extra canteen he'd brought with him as a peace offering/ apology for trespassing when Kenobi dropped by and ruined the negotiations, which resulted in him being firmly whacked on the head and knocked out. Fortunately for him the situation didn't get any worse, because the Sand People were scared of Kenobi after the incident where the old man had gotten drunk and decided to burn some "sentimental" items that should never have come near a fire in the first place. The massive explosion that resulted had sent flaming debris raining down on a nearby encampment. Whenever the Sand People saw Kenobi, their first response was to immediately run back to camp and move their tents a safe distance away in case he decided to blow something else up.

Kenobi had used his concussion - which could have easily be dealt with by initiating a short healing trance - as an excuse to drag him back to his house. It had been there after Uncle Owen's new droid had delivered a message from a beautiful woman who was clearly really desperate - she would have to have been if even half of Uncle Owen's stories about Kenobi's negligence and blatant disregard for human life (or any life for that matter) were true - to Kenobi that he had been handed the lightsaber. While he'd seen a grand total of three other lightsabers - the two that belonged to Uncle A'Sharad and the one hanging from Kenobi's belt - before and probably wasn't the best person to judge, he thought that it was rather well made.

One thing bothered him about the situation though.

"Why would my father want me to have this? What about my other brothers? Why didn't he leave any for them?" he asked as he examined the blue blade.

"Well, its because you're the oldest." Kenobi replied, not quite meeting his eyes.

Since Kenobi knew his father - and according to Uncle Owen - had trained him, he decided to ask the one question Uncle A'Sharad had been unable to answer because he didn't know. Kenobi probably didn't know either, but it was worth the gamble.

"How did my father die?" he asked. He decided to run any response he got by Uncle A'Sharad because as Uncle A'Sharad had said, Kenobi tended to tell the truth from "A certain point of view". Uncle Owen had translated that to mean "He's a damned liar."

"Darth Vader who was a young pupil of mine before he turned to Evil betrayed and murdered your father." Kenobi said.

&!&!&

Half an hour later after he'd bundled R2 and Kenobi who wanted to hitch a ride to Mos Eisley into the speeder, Luke found himself in front of the Sandcrawler that belonged to the Jawas that had sold the droid to Uncle Owen yesterday. The corpses of said Jawas were scattered about it. He didn't need Kenobi to tell him it wasn't Sand People who had caused the carnage. Uncle A'Sharad who was an expert on Sand People because he had been one of them had taught him and his brothers their ways. This was the work of Stormtroopers who were undoubtedly on their way to his home if they hadn't arrived already.

Hopping back into the landspeeder, he made his way back to the farm. He would pick Kenobi up and take him to Mos Eisley after he was certain his family was safe. Kenobi wanted him to come with him to Alderaan, but he wasn't going to go. While he was the big dreamer amongst his brothers, constantly longing for a life of adventure, Uncle A'Sharad had given him a big dose of reality a couple years earlier. Because he was Force Sensitive, his dreams were just dreams. If he left Tatooine, he would put himself and his brothers at risk. The Empire hunted down and killed all of the Force sensitives that they didn't enslave. Since he and his brothers would rather die before they became slaves it wouldn't only be his life that would be lost if he were caught. The only reason they were safe here was because the place was totally isolated, and the Empire really didn't give a damn about it since it didn't and never would bring in much revenue.

When he got back to the farm, he found it on fire. A quick check revealed that the other speeder and the swoop bike were gone. He didn't sense any of his brothers nearby, but he did sense his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru fast approaching. Ten minutes later while he was busy putting the fire out, the swoop bike arrived and Owen and Beru dismounted.

"Luke, you're grounded!" Owen roared.

"It wasn't me!" he yelled back once the last of the flames were extinguished. "A bunch of Imperials did it when they dropped by looking for us while we were out. Which reminds me, we've gotta leave right now!"

Owen used the comm which had miraculously survived, to call the Darklighters who had apparently just returned from the near disaster that was Eyvind and Ariela's wedding - some teenage Tusken Raiders had tried to steal a couple landspeeders but Ariq Joanson had been able to resolve the situation with his help, and the brats ended up leaving with an entire bowl of spiced punch instead. Twenty minutes after that, some Stormtroopers had arrived asking after him and Beru, fortunately for them, Imperials were universally hated amongst the guests and nobody had said anything - to look after the farm until they could get back before he and Beru headed over to Anchorhead to collect the rest of the boys and head to Mos Eisley.

Luke took the speeder and picked up Kenobi and the droids on his way to join the rest of the family.

&!&!&

When they met up in Mos Eisley, it was decided that they would all go to Alderaan. This decision was made mostly because Kenobi knew the people who ruled the place - A'Sharad had confirmed that Kenobi had been friends with Senator Bail Organa who was Prince Consort to Queen Breha - and could get them protection from the Empire which was now hunting them thanks to Kenobi. It was decided that Luke - whom Kenobi had seemed to favor for some strange reason - and A'Sharad Hett would go along with Obi-Wan Kenobi - who had pointed out that despite the fact that it was his fault that the Empire was after the asses of the Skywalker/Lars family the Imperials weren't actively searching for him - in search of transportation.

As soon as Luke and A'Sharad found a table in the crowded cantina that Kenobi had led them to, Luke decided to see if Kenobi's version of his father's death could be true.

"I asked Kenobi how my father died." Luke said.

"What did he tell you?" A'Sharad asked curiously. Kenobi had never given any specifics when he'd been asked previously.

"That Darth Vader was once Kenobi's student, and that he betrayed my father then murdered him." Luke replied.

A'Sharad's drink went spraying across the table, and for several moments he sat there gaping at Luke unable to speak. When he finally found his voice, he started muttering things under his breath, none of them polite.

"Did Kenobi lie?" Luke asked several minutes later when A'Sharad had finally fallen silent.

"Yeah, big time. I'll explain it to you later." A'Sharad said moments later when he'd finally processed the question.

It was at that point that Obi-Wan Kenobi came to their table with a Wookiee and a smuggler.

"I've found us a ship." He said with a smile. His smile swiftly disappeared when he saw the glares directed at him.

&!&!&

When the group that consisted of Owen Lars, Beru Lars, A'Sharad Hett, Luke Skywalker, Typho Skywalker, Qui-Gon Skywalker, Rex Skywalker, and an Obi-Wan Kenobi - who now had pink hair compliments of a ten second dye bomb and a Kick Me sign on his back - arrived in Docking Bay 94 there was a collective groan of disappointment.

"Damn, I knew you'd mess this up Kenobi." Owen said. "Let's go find another ship."

They didn't find another ship however, the Stormtroopers that arrived moments later forced them all to race aboard the Millenium Falcon which then blasted its way into space and headed for Alderaan.

(**^**)

**Edited on Sept. 3 2010**


	5. 3 Daughters, 4 Sons on the Way

Princess Leia's eyes widened in fear when the Interrogation Droid followed Darth Vader into her cell. Hours later, Vader left after having gotten nothing. He hadn't pressed as hard as he could have because the girl's resemblance to his mother had disturbed him greatly.

Princess Sola glared defiantly when Vader entered her cell with the same Interrogation droid. Vader spent less time with her. He had been unable to look at her the entire time because he saw Padme every time he did, and had gotten nothing out of her.

Princess Breha backed into a corner when Vader and the droid arrived. He got nothing out of her as well, and had to spend the rest of the evening pushing the memory of the time he had gone with Padme to visit her family on Naboo out of his mind.

As he informed Grand Moff Tarkin that he had made no progress with the princesses, he could hear the laughter of little Ryoo and Pooja and feel Padme standing beside him as she had on that day while they had watched the girls play tag with R2.

That evening while he meditated memories of his last days with his beloved Padme - memories he had avoided for the last twenty years - pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind. He remembered how she had ordered everything in threes after he had pointed out the fact that triplets were quite likely considering her size, how they made lists of names for if they were boys or girls or a mix of both, and how in the final days before he had fallen for Palpatine's empty promises they had sat in front of the fire while he fed her sweets and told her how much he loved her and that he didn't care that she had gotten so large that she took up the entire couch.

He struggled to force those memories from his mind. The pain was almost too much. He hadn't deserved such happiness. He'd completely failed his wife, and then he'd killed her and their unborn twins. It didn't matter that he had failed to spot the intestinal parasite that had been slowly killing her from the inside, he had strangled her to death himself. He had gotten upset when he believed she had betrayed him, and killed her in his anger.

The more he tried to push the memories away, more memories came to him until he was back at the Naberrie family home. It had been while he had been assigned to protect Padme from the bounty hunters who had attempted to assassinate her. She had gone to visit her family and he had followed. Several members of the family had thought him to be her boyfriend until she had disabused them of the notion at dinner. Padme's father Ruwee - who had tried to look intimidating despite the fact that he was much shorter - had even taken him aside while Padme was helping prepare dinner with her mother and her sister and had asked him what his intentions were.

After struggling with the memory of Ruwee Naberrie's wide accepting smile after he told the man that he had absolutely no intention of ever hurting Padme, he angrily shoved back the memories that had been brought forth because of the princesses' resemblance to loved ones who had died long ago. The fact that there were three of them didn't help. Despite the fact that an autopsy done after Padme had been brought back to Naboo by some fugitive Jedi had shown that she had been expecting twins and an intestinal parasite, he had always associated those few days when he'd believed that he, Padme, and their children would be a family with the idea of three babies.

_Wait a minute..._ he thought as something suddenly occurred to him._ Fugitive Jedi? As in get one parent's permission, take the baby and run before the other parent finds out what happened Jedi?As in can mind trick someone into believing they'd done an autopsy Jedi?_

Coming to the realization that the princesses' resemblance to his loved ones might not be a coincidence after all, Darth Vader angrily stood up and stormed down to the Detention Level, briefly stopping in medical to grab a scanner capable of doing genetic comparisons, a syringe and three of those things used to prick peoples fingers to collect small blood samples on the way. He jabbed the syringe into his armor, and drew some blood which he entered into the analyzer as the reference sample.

Storming into Sola's cell first after a quick round of eenie meenie minie mo, he walked over to her, grabbed her arm, and jabbed her right index finger with the finger pricker. As soon as a drop of blood he'd deemed large enough had appeared, he put it in the analyzer with a bit of difficulty due to the fact that she was struggling. A minute later, the scanner gave out an almost cheerful sounding ding to indicate it was done. He looked down at the readout. The word Match flashed in bright green letters on the screen. Subsequent tests on Leia and Breha indicated that they too were his daughters.

His babies had somehow survived. They had survived, and Obi-Wan had stolen them. He would pay.

&!&!&

Aboard the Millenium Falcon - which was rather crowded - the Skywalker boys were gathered around a datapad engaged in some sort of discussion.

"What are you boys doing?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asked when he approached the group.

"We're drawing up a schedule so we can share our father's lightsaber equally." Luke - who'd become the spokesperson of the group when it came to Kenobi - said. "He couldn't have meant for just one of us to have it, or he would've made more."

Obi-Wan sighed. He had planned on training Luke as he was the strongest of the boys. He'd previously been thwarted at every turn by Owen Lars and A'Sharad Hett. He had intended for the lightsaber to be a Padawan gift for Luke like the rock his Master Qui-Gon Jinn had given to him when he became a Padawan. Every attempt he had made to connect with Luke aboard the Falcon had been rebuffed however.

The other boys had outright refused to speak with him after they had been told that he had "Lied to Luke about how their father died". To make matters worse, Typho - the merry prankster of the bunch - took every opportunity to trip him, spill things on him, stick ridiculous signs on his back, and dye his hair weird colors courtesy of his vast hair-dye collection purchased with funds from the mechanic work he did in Anchorhead and the surrounding area when he wasn't working on the farm [Typho's hair was currently orange]. The twins - one of whom was his master's namesake - didn't deem him worth their attention and generally ignored him, but they would glare at him every time he approached, as they were doing now.

One of the boys must've gotten to Chewbacca, because while he had been friendly at the cantina - even reminiscing about the first time they had met - he was much less so now. Chewbacca must've said something to the smuggler Solo, because the man looked at him coldly every time they met. It seemed that throughout this entire trip, he was going to be an outcast.

&!&!&

Han watched Kenobi. He had been a child during the Clone Wars, nearly seven when it started. Kenobi and Skywalker had been his heroes. To trillions of children across the Galaxy Kenobi and Skywalker had been one word spoken rapidly Kenobiandskywalker. They had been two heroes fighting side by side pushing back the Separatist threat with their lightsabers held high. Time had disillusioned him. The last of his heroes had died yesterday when Owen Lars told him how before Skywalker was even cold in his grave Kenobi had abandoned his children on the Lars' doorstep and tried to sneak off into the night, not even caring what happened to them. If Owen hadn't heard the babies crying, a stray pack of Anooba or any predator for that matter could have eaten them long before the sun rose.

It figured. His only living relatives turned out to be assholes. The Empire which he'd seen as an escape from his servitude to Shrike turned out to be a den of monsters. The woman he loved used him and people who trusted him, destroying that trust...the list just went on and on.

The fact that guy he'd seen as a hero turned out to be a kriffing jerk was pretty much par for the course.

&!&!&

Owen watched the boys he had raised since infancy. All of the boys were excellent mechanics and phenomenal pilots like their father. They were all kind and caring like their grandmother as well.

Luke - the smallest of the lot - was the wide eyed dreamer and the peacemaker. His imaginative stories had kept the family entertained during the occasional sandstorm when all there was to do was to hunker down, wait for it to pass, and hope it didn't destroy too much of the farm. He had been the one his brothers went to when they needed mediation. He had been the one to stop most of the arguments and fights.

Typho - the prankster - was a brilliant Slicer, and an exceptional fighter. Typho had been the one who had gotten them free Holonet and Comm service when he was ten. Typho had also been the best of the boys at hand-to-hand when A'Sharad had taught them. He was also good at turning just about anything and everything in the immediate area into a weapon.

Qui-Gon absolutely adored animals of all kinds. A'Sharad had said that had the galaxy been different he would have made an excellent Veterinary Healer. The boy was constantly bringing home sick, injured, and orphaned animals. The place would have been overrun with pets if he hadn't convinced the boy to sell any creature he couldn't return to the wild.

The cheerful and sunny Rex was the best marksman of the four, and the best at first aid. The boy could accurately fire any weapon be it a slingshot or a blaster and was downright lethal with the Tusken slug thrower he'd acquired. He had probably saved all of his brother's lives at least once either with his blaster or with his first aid.

They were his boys, and the fact that their father was alive didn't change that. A'Sharad had told him a few hours earlier about the lie Kenobi had told Luke and what it meant before asking his permission to tell the boys later. A'Sharad had always respected his decisions when it came to how much to tell the boys about the Jedi, the Force, and their father in particular. Anakin had scared the living daylights out of him when he first met him, and he didn't know why until he'd returned with his mother's corpse. He heard the stories afterward and knew that Anakin wasn't someone to be messed with.

&!&!&

Beru silently cried as she watched the boys. Poor Anakin. He'd been dragged into a war almost immediately after his mother died, forced to fight battle after battle, unable to properly grieve his mothers death and the deaths of the friends who were dying all around him, forced to hide his love for the boys' mother who had died giving birth to them.

It was no wonder he had broke down, almost everyone he had ever loved and cared for were gone. All he had left in the end were his pain and his anger. She was damn near certain that Kenobi had told him that his boys had died with their mother, otherwise he would have raised them. The Anakin that Shmi had constantly spoken of would never have abandoned his children.

(**^**)

**Edited on Sept. 3 2010**


	6. Family Reunion

Vader had been wondering how the hell he was going to get his daughters off the Death Star since his master had ordered him to follow that asshat Tarkin's orders while he was here. While he had considered telling his master to go to hell and doing as he damn well pleased, he rejected the idea in the end. Doing so would result in a near immediate death sentence for himself and his daughters which would be carried out by one or more of his master's numerous "Hands", and as he wasn't entirely certain that his master hadn't built some sort of kill switch into his life support that could be activated at the most inconvenient of moments, he wasn't about to take that risk. If he wasn't around to defend his daughters their fate would be truly horrifying indeed.

It had been in the third hour of his musing that the ship that shone like a beacon in the Force had appeared. It had been a godsend with a side order of revenge earlier than he expected, considering the fact that one of the Jedi presences he sensed aboard it was his former master Kenobi. After coming up with a totally brilliant plan on the spot, he went to Tarkin as fast as he could without arousing suspicion in the old bat and presented a plot that would appeal to the wily bastard.

The evil geezer who had taken great pleasure in blowing up Despayre and Alderaan couldn't wait for the opportunity to destroy yet another planet and had taken the bait. It was now up to him to "Personally plant a homing beacon aboard the ship while everyone was away rescuing the princesses". Once the ship was away, it could then be tracked to the Rebel base. At least that was what he had told Tarkin. In reality, the ship would get away and he'd just say something along the lines of "Oops, sorry it seems the homing beacon has malfunctioned. His daughters would be gone, but they would be safe.

The ship - which was not much to look at on the outside - was a heavily modified YT-1300 that apparently had some real sweet engines if the story of how it blew out of Mos Eisley was to be believed. It was also not as unoccupied as he had thought it would be when the swarm of Jedi had departed earlier to wreak havoc aboard the station. The bright presences of the Jedi he'd somehow missed during the purges had overshadowed at least one more ordinary one.

When he boarded the Rebel's ship to "Personally plant the homing beacon" (read: stand around and do jack for a few minutes) he found himself face to...er, looking down at someone he was reasonably certain was his step-brother Owen. The man's resemblance to Cliegg Lars was unmistakable.

"Hello Anakin." The man who may have been Owen said.

"Huh?" he said, too shocked that Owen was here and knew exactly who he was to really say anything intelligent, much less correct him on his current identity.

"A'Sharad told me about it. As far as I'm concerned, it's all Kenobi's fault." Owen said.

"Kenobi's fault?" he asked, confused.

This was not how he imagined an encounter with his Step-brother would go. He had imagined there being alot more blood, and himself punishing Owen for being too weak to save his mother. He had not pictured him standing there like a total kriffing moron.

"Anyone who would be willing to leave four babies out in the desert at night completely unsupervised where they could be found and eaten by any number of creatures couldn't have raised you properly." Owen said. "There was that, and his dismissing your visions as nightmares and not letting you go look for your mother until it was too late. I've been told that that was most likely a key event in your becoming the second most evil person in the galaxy."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he just stood there in silence until he'd determined he'd been aboard long enough to have planted a beacon in a well hidden spot and left. Owen being completely understanding, and agreeing with him that his mother's death had been at least partially Kenobi's fault had thrown him for a loop. Actually, just seeing his step-brother had thrown him for a bit of a loop. He'd almost completely forgotten about the man and when he did think of him it had been only briefly before he'd gone on to some other task after fantasizing about killing him and everyone else who helped make his life miserable.

&!&!&

"Who was that Owen?" Beru asked when she came out of the small 'fresher shortly after Anakin had left.

"It was Anakin. I told him that we didn't blame him, and blamed Kenobi instead." he said. "He just sorta stood there for a while and left. I guess that the confrontation with the family didn't go exactly as he expected it would, and just didn't know how to deal with it."

"Poor Anakin. He didn't really seem able to deal with his feelings the short time I knew him, and that probably hasn't improved much since, especially with the whole nervous breakdown." Beru said sympathetically.

(**^**)

**Edited Sept. 3 2010**


	7. A Day Aboard The Death Star

Han thought that that incident where he'd nearly ended up in the Maw that had somehow shaved both time and distance off his trip, making the statement "I made the Kessel Run in three parsecs" completely true despite how ridiculous it sounded, had been insane. That was practically nothing compared to this. At least then, he'd been relatively safe aboard his ship. Now, he was running around a planet destroying space station staffed with a crew of about a million, not counting support staff, with four moisture farmers, a Tusken Raider, and Obi-Wan Kriffing Kenobi of all people.

Oddly, nobody had arrested them, much less questioned their presence aboard the station. It had almost been as if there had been a memo sent out telling everyone to completely ignore the intruders.

He hoped that he and Chewie didn't push their luck until it broke here, because they'd need it later in order to survive Jabba's displeasure with him.

&!&!&!&

Sola lay on her bunk and cried. Today had been the worst day of her life. Alderaan had been destroyed as she stood there helpless, unable to do anything but watch. If that wasn't devastating enough, she had also learned that the most evil - or possibly the second most evil depending on who you asked - man in the galaxy was her father.

She and her sisters had long known that there were certain circumstances surrounding their adoption that their parents had been unable to talk about, but this...

Suddenly, the door opened and a stormtrooper who was a couple inches taller than regulation allowed walked inside.

"Aren't you a little tall for a stormtrooper?" Sola asked.

"The name's Rex, and we're getting the hell out of here." the "Stormtrooper" said before grabbing her arm and dragging her out of her cell before she could object.

In the next cell over, Leia was having a similar experience with a rather short "Stormtrooper" named Luke.

&!&!&!&

A little while later a group that consisted of the Skywalker/Naberrie septuplets, Chewbacca, and Han Solo were wringing water that they prayed had only contained garbage and a Dianoga out of their clothing.

"Well, that went well." Typho said mock cheerfully as Solo fired into the trash compactor, hoping to hit the Dianoga.

"This rescue is about to get a whole lot worse." Breha said conversationally. "Darth Vader just learned that he was our father this morning, and wasn't too happy to discover that we had been hidden from him. Anyone who tries to take us from him will most likely suffer a very messy fate."

"That's funny." Rex said. "We just learned that Darth Vader was _our _father this morning. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were never very good at hiding things from us, and their idea of a low whisper is perfectly audible if one has the right tools."

Han Solo stood there blinking stupidly, unable to process what he'd just heard. Chewbacca stood behind him laughing his ass off.

&!&!&!&!&

A pair of stormtroopers walked off to investigate the "disturbance" that had "distracted" them from the grizzled old man and his companion who were currently deactivating the station's tractor beams in complete silence. At least that's what it seemed to the outside world. In the private world of their helmets however...

"So, who's going to inform Lord Vader that General Kenobi and General Hett are down here messing around with the Tractor Beam controls?"

"One, two, three..."

"Not it!"

"Not it!"

"Shit."

&!&!&!&

A'Sharad Hett sighed and tapped his foot impatiently as Kenobi dawdled on his side of the control panel. He really wished the old man would hurry. Despite the fact that there had been a sharp reduction in quality after the Empire switched cloning companies and started hiring normal recruits who were better known for their brawn rather than their brains, there was no way in hell that the stormtroopers were that stupid. They'd be back soon, and with reinforcements, alot of reinforcements.

It would be best to not be there when they arrived.

At the pace Kenobi was going at however...

&!&!&!&

Owen sighed as he laid his cards down on the table. He now had to do half of the "Honey Do" list when they got home with no if, ands, or buts about it. He'd found the cards when he had hunted for something to do while they waited for the boys to return. He and his wife had been playing Sabacc for the last half hour, and he'd been steadily losing the entire time.

It sure beat Beru crying over Anakin's nervous breakdown, and whatever must have happened to him to land him in that crime of fashion however.


End file.
